Although Sufi characters - saints, dervishes, wanderers - occur regularly in modern Arabic literature, a select group of novelists seeks to interrogate Sufism as a system of thought and language. In the work of writers like Naguib Mahfouz, Gamal Al-Ghitany, Tahar Ouettar, Ibrahim Al-Koni, Mahmud Al-Mas'adi and Tayeb Salih we see a strong intertextual relationship with the Sufi masters of the past, including Al-Hallaj, Ibn Arabi, Al-Niffari and Al-Suhrawardi. This relationship becomes a means of interrogating the limits of the creative self, individuality, rationality and the manifold...

Through formal analysis of subjection, address, and narration in canonical and penny literatures, this book reveals the mutual forces of concern and consumption that afflict objects of a weird cultural history of bloody London across the long 19th century.

Explores discourses on gender and representations of women in modern Iraqi fiction Includes marginalised voices in Arabic literary scholarship, such as religious writings by Iraqi Shia women Challenges canonical views of modern Arabic literature by studying propaganda texts such as the novels of Saddam Hussein Argues for an interdisciplinary interpretation of literary texts as cultural products that must be contextualised in the 'market' in which they emerge and are received Uses the concept of 'paratexts' in order to better understand how political works circulate and are marketed to...

The 1919 anti-colonial revolution is a key moment in modern Egyptian history and a historical reference point in Egyptian culture through the century. This book offers a close reading of a wide range of novels, films, plays and memoirs that feature this momentous historical event. By examining canonised as well as neglected works, Dina Heshmat highlights the processes of remembering and forgetting that have contributed to shaping a dominant imaginary about 1919 in Egypt, coined by successive political and cultural elites. Informed by concepts of class and gender, this book brings out a number...